'Smokefall' asks life's big questions in O.C. world premiere

Orson Bean, Heidi Dippold, Corey Brill and Carmela Corbett in the world premiere of Noah Haidle's "Smokefall" at SCR. Haidle is one of theater's bomb throwers. Since the beginning of his precocious career more than a decade ago, the 34-year-old Michigan-born playwright has never been interested in well-crafted realism. BEN HORAK, SCR

Since the beginning of his precocious career more than a decade ago, the 34-year-old Michigan-born playwright has never been interested in well-crafted realism. The three Haidle plays produced at South Coast Repertory since 2004 – "Mr. Marmalade," "Princess Marjorie" and "Saturn Returns" – tackle big issues with fearless inventiveness and candor, an approach that can ruffle those who like their theater to stay inside the boundaries of taste and propriety.

"Smokefall," Haidle's newest play, made its debut Friday on South Coast Repertory's Segerstrom Stage, and true to form, it was a wild and unpredictable ride.

Unlike his earlier work, though, there's less of a payoff. Despite some insightful touches by Obie-winning director Anne Kauffman and solid performances by an able cast, "Smokefall" feels like an unfinished script – perhaps two or even three.

"Smokefall" shares many traits with other Haidle plays. Like "Saturn Returns," it is set in his hometown of Grand Rapids and skips through several generations of time. Like "Mr. Marmalade," it features characters whose biological ages don't match their level of self-awareness.

But its story and themes feel more intensely personal than usual. The playwright talked recently about some issues that pulled him back from successful writers' natural lairs, New York and Los Angeles, to his family home for a time. He now lives in Detroit, across the state but not too far from Grand Rapids.

"Smokefall" comes across as the work of an artist taking stock and re-examining his values. It presents the big questions asked by every disciple of the well-examined life: What are we here for? What difference will we make? What legacy should we leave behind? Is living even worth the effort?

The answers are elusive for the small family we meet in "Smokefall's" first scene, which takes place in a suburban midcentury home embodied sketchily, like an architect's hasty first draft, by scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg.

Violet (Heidi Dippold), very pregnant with twin boys, sings to them in the kitchen. Her husband Daniel (Corey Brill) greets everyone cheerily as he arrives at breakfast. The happy family is completed by their teen daughter Beauty (Carmela Corbett) and Violet's father (Orson Bean), a retired military colonel who starts each day by donning his uniform with Beauty's help. Though dementia has robbed him of much of his memory, he seems content.

But trouble brews just under the surface. How do we know? Because a narrator named Footnote (Leo Marks) tells us so. Like "Our Town's" stage manager, he's an omniscient observer. He knows all about Daniel's silent desperation to escape his life, Violet's fear that her fragile clan will disintegrate, the sad reason why Beauty won't talk or eat real food, even the secret yearnings of Max, the family dog: he's in love with the cat next door.

That last touch is typical Haidle. A constantly self-aware ironist, he's fond of taking a dramatic conceit into absurdity to remind us of theater's artifice.

Haidle likes to upset the apple cart when it comes to tone, too, and that tendency doesn't work to this play's benefit. The first scene's nicely observed atmosphere of ostensible domestic bliss hiding deep fissures of discontent is discarded in the second scene, a freewheeling dialogue between Violet's two unborn boys as they prepare for delivery.

It unfolds on a set of stairs that telescope beyond the apron of the stage. Dressed in garish red tuxedos, the twins speculate about their pending life and the strange, troubled family they belong to. Fetus One (Brill) is anxious about coming into the world; Fetus Two (Marks) is more positive about the transition.

The boys' talk veers from sublime to ridiculous: the nature of suffering, Russian literature, French wine, tickling and "Raging Bull." Imagine "Godot's" clowns as smart-aleck Yanks in utero. It's an amazing scene – a debate about whether or not to choose existence presented as bouncily and breezily as a backyard badminton match – but the tonal contrast to the first scene seems arbitrary.

The final act is "Smokefall's" least satisfying. Set decades after the first scene, it attempts to close some thematic and narrative circles, employing touches of magic realism in the process. It's ultimately a failure, though it contains a beautiful soliloquy by Johnny (one of the fetuses, now an old man) that's a showcase for Bean's veteran talents. Unaffected, minimalist and natural, he's always a joy to watch.

Others find similar success with understatement.

Dippold doesn't overdo Violet's anxiety, though the family matriarch is clearly at the end of her rope. Brill does well with two complementary roles. As an anxious fetus, he blurts out the worries that silently gnaw at his other character, Daniel. Marks' narrator is inexplicably Philip Marlowe-ish in manner (it's hard not to be while wearing a period suit and fedora), but he somehow makes the character work by soft-pedaling. Corbett wisely pairs Beauty's silence with veiled emotions, opting to keep her character a mystery until Footnote fills us in on her secrets.

"Smokefall" doesn't yet work very well as a play. Perhaps it never will. But it could be successful in ways that are more important to Haidle than his audience. Only time will tell, of course, but I suspect it's the work of a talented, uncompromising writer finding his way tortuously to the next chapter of his career – whatever that might be.

Orson Bean, Heidi Dippold, Corey Brill and Carmela Corbett in the world premiere of Noah Haidle's "Smokefall" at SCR. Haidle is one of theater's bomb throwers. Since the beginning of his precocious career more than a decade ago, the 34-year-old Michigan-born playwright has never been interested in well-crafted realism. BEN HORAK, SCR
Leo Marks in Noah Haidle's "Smokefall" at SCR. He plays two characters including Footnote (pictured). BEN HORAK, SCR
Orson Bean, Heidi Dippold and Corey Brill in "Smokefall." It shares many features with other Haidle plays. Like “Saturn Returns,” it is set in his hometown of Grand Rapids and skips through several generations of time. Like “Mr. Marmalade,” it features characters whose biological ages don't match their level of self-awareness. BEN HORAK, SCR
Orson Bean (Colonel), Heidi Dippold (Violet) and Corey Brill (Daniel) in a scene from "Smokefall." Noah Haidle's play is making its world premiere at South Coast Repertory. HENRY DIROCCO, SCR
Orson Bean, Corey Brill, Carmela Corbett and Heidi Dippold in a scene from "Smokefall" at SCR. “Smokefall” comes across as the work of an artist taking stock and re-examining his values. It presents the big questions asked by every disciple of the well-examined life: What are we here for? What difference will we make? What legacy should we leave behind? Is living even worth the effort? HENRY DIROCCO, SCR
Orson Bean and Carmela Corbett play a retired colonel and his grand-daughter in "Smokefall" at SCR. HENRY DIROCCO, SCR
Carmela Corbett's Beauty is mute and eats non-edible things. Nobody knows the reason for her odd behavior. HENRY DIROCCO, SCR
"Smokefall" takes place in a suburban midcentury home embodied sketchily, like an architect's hasty first draft, by scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg. HENRY DIROCCO, SCR

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